When we started on our journey of predicting the results of the FIFA World Cup matches, we set out with some cautious optimism. We had experienced success with predicting the outcomes of the 2015 Rugby World Cup and the 2016 Oscars, but Football was a whole new ballgame. As our CEO, Jaco Rossouw, said: “We’ve never used our skills as data scientists to predict the outcomes of a football game, and unlike with the Rugby World Cup where we were predicting the point margins between the participating teams, this time we’ll be predicting the exact final scores – a significantly more complex challenge!”

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South African based data analytics company, Principa, will be predicting the results of every match at this year’s FIFA Football World Cup, to once again put theory into play. By applying the same principles used to predict customer behaviour for Principa’s financial services and retail clients, the company’s data scientists are using different algorithms to develop models that can predict the outcome of the matches.

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